


rare and sweet as cherry wine

by Kangoo



Series: Front toward enemy [9]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Alcohol, First Kiss, M/M, Razel finally gets a move on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 00:22:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18457664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangoo/pseuds/Kangoo
Summary: Razel is grounded at the Tower. Cayde takes him out for drinks.





	rare and sweet as cherry wine

**Author's Note:**

> this one goes to my two friends who can't hold their alcohol and start telling everyone they love them after two beers.
> 
> title from hozier's "cherry wine" (which, thematically speaking, has nothing to do with this excepted for that sentence)

Razel enters the hangar and makes a beeline for Cayde, giving Amanda a high five on his way.

“Hey, buddy! Didn’t know you were in town.” Surprise, the happy kind, colors his tone as they fistbump.

He shrugs a shoulder, attempts standoffish-ness. “I thought it’d be nice to take a brea-”

“Ikora grounded you again, didn’t she.”

He laughs. “Yeah. On an unrelated note, you were right: the Cabal have _no_ sense of fair-play.”

Cayde blinks, confused for a second. Razel can see when it dawns on him by the way his eyes light up, glowing an even brighter blue. “You didn’t-”

“Fight a Gladiator with my bare hands? Hell the fuck yes I did. Bet ya I would, didn’t I?”

He smiles, smug, and Cayde lets out a delighted laugh. “Shit, well done. How was it?”

“Fun, until I had to stop his sword with my bare hand and it burned through my gloves… and a few layers of my skin. Hurt like a bitch.”

“Don’t bullshit me, I know that was your favorite part.” He bumps their shoulder and Razel hums in assent. Yeah, honestly, that was fun. Gladiators are _huge_ and their sword-cleaver thing can cut clean through a guardian. The fact that he managed to catch the not-sharp side of it was impressive enough. That it managed to hurt him anyway… Yeah. Fun times. Challenging. “I get why Ikora grounded you though. Did she give you the speech? Tell me she gave you the speech.”

“The one about ‘being a hazard to myself and others’?”

“A classic.” Cayde pitches his voice higher in an imitation of Ikora’s. “ _Maybe this time you will learn your lesson about not needlessly endangering yourself for the sake of glory or stupid baits._ ”

A pause, and they both break into giggles. They’ve heard that speech countless times before. At this point Razel’s pretty sure Ikora only does it to keep face because it sure as hell isn’t working on them. As for the grounding— well. She’s always telling him he should take a break. That must be her way of making sure he gets one.

“Yeaah, I give her three days before she kicks you out of the Tower herself.”

“Wanna bet on it?”

Cayde punches his arm lightly. Or as lightly as it gets when you’re immortal and used to kinda-killing your friends for fun. “Don’t take bets you know you’ll lose. Not with a Hunter, at least.”

He shrugs. “It’s fun. And I don’t mind losing to you.”

It’s true. Usually Cayde gives him dumb dares or make him pay the bill when they go eat ramens. He has a thing against big Bets… Something to do with the previous Hunter Vanguard is all he told him. Razel doesn’t pry.

Cayde pushes away from the beam he’s leaning against, pats Razel on the shoulder. “Lemme settle that one first, then we can make another. What was it we bet again?”

“A night’s worth of drinks, I think.” A better deal for Cayde, who has an impressive alcohol tolerance even for an Exo. Razel is a bit of a lightweight— he doesn’t have the same experience with booze.

“Sounds about right. Hey, Amanda! We’re going drinking tonight, you comin’?”

The shipwright doesn’t look up from the parts she’s inspecting as she yells back, “I’m in!”

Cayde turns back to Razel. “Well, we got some time before she’s done here. Fancy a meal?”

“If you’re paying, sure.”

“Parasite.”

-

They catch up over spicy ramen and a cold beer. Cayde almost stabs Razel’s eye out with his chopsticks while telling him about the missions he ran before joining the Vanguard.

They relocate to a bar. Cayde and Amanda bicker over their drinks — she says he should pay the first round, while Cayde insists he only promised he’d pay _Razel’s_ drinks and she was old enough to buy her own alcohol.

They drink. And drink. And… drink some more. At some point there are shots. That’s when it starts to get blurry. Razel remembers… looking at Cayde. Maybe spacing out while looking at Cayde? Also, dancing with Amanda, and watching the two of them engage in a drinking game that is clearly biased toward the robot side of the competition.

It’s unfair that he can’t really get drunk.

Razel tells him just that as they’re walking out of the bar. Well, he’s not quite walking out on his own two feet. Amanda has his arm over her shoulder and they’re kind of keeping each other up, swaying in time with the tune she’s humming.

“And yet she keeps trying,” Cayde says. He’s slurring a little, his voice box trying and not quite succeeding to keep up despite the liquor in his system. He’s not that steady on his feet either. He’s just better at pretending he’s sober.

“And one day I’ll...” Amanda trips on thin air and almost sends the two of them sprawling. They keep their balance through sheer luck and uncoordinated flailing, Cayde cracking up at the spectacle. “ _Fuck_. One day I’ll beat you.”

“The day you beat me at a drinking game is the day I retire, kiddo.”

“Or y’can- y’can- you… can be a robot too?” Razel leans to the side, dragging her with him, before stumbling a few steps and righting himself. “Wait. How does that work.”

“Dunno. Not like that, though. I think,” Cayde replies.

They walk a little while still before Amanda painstakingly peel herself from Razel’s side. “That’s my stop boys,” she says before turning to Cayde. “You’ll be alright with him?”

Razel stands in place and focuses very hard on his feet so he doesn’t fall while they talk. It’s hard, because the ground keeps moving and his legs aren’t responding like he expects them to. He sways, almost falls, and an arm snakes behind his back, a hand coming to rest on his waist to steady him. He’s used to it, by now, so it doesn’t take him long to find the coordination necessary to throw his own arm around Cayde’s shoulders.

“Yeah, it’s like that every time. We got a system.” Cayde hauls Razel up, the other guardian going limp in his grasp. “I just got to get him to my couch and we’ll be golden.”

They exchange good nights, Razel mumbling his into Cayde’s shoulder, before she leaves. They’re left standing in the middle of the street, Cayde easily bearing his weight against him despite not being exactly sober himself.

“Ready?”

Razel hums something vaguely positive, and they’re off.

The walk to the Vanguard’s chambers isn’t a short one. They could go to the Hunters’ barracks, Cayde has a bed there, but his actual apartment is just… more practical. And the trip goes by quickly anyway, the way it does when you’re too drunk to keep track of time. Razel sings under his breath, an off-key rendition of the songs that were playing in the bar, and leans against Cayde until he’s practically carrying him.

It feels like a blink of an eye before they’re standing in front of his door. Razel hangs off Cayde’s shoulders as he unlocks his door with fumbling hands.

“You’re druuunk,” he sing-songs.

“And _you’re_ trashed.”

He laughs. “ _Yeah_.”

Finally they stumble through the door and it locks on its own behind them. They fall over themselves and against a wall, leaning on each other to stay on their feet. Razel, who pretty much fell on top of Cayde, rests his chin on his shoulder.

“Cayde… _bro_.”

“Yeah?”

“I love you, bro.” Razel leans all his weight against Cayde, sighing softly. Comfy…

“Yeah, I know,” Cayde replies, sounding like a man trying really hard to gather the few brain cells he has left to accomplish the one simple task of getting the two of them to their respective bed.”

Razel frowns and pushes back, just far enough to look Cayde in the eyes. It’s blurry and not quite a still picture, but at least there’s an effort. “No, bro, you don’t get it. I _love_ you. You’re so fucking… important to me and shit. You’re my best friend. I love you so much.”

“You’re my best friend too. Even if you’re crushing me.”

A spark goes through Razel’s mind. He leans forward, so close the blue light of Cayde’s eyes fill his vision. “Let’s make a bet.”

That catches his attention. “Sure. What d’you wanna bet on?”

“Betcha I can’t kiss you right now,” he says, and does exactly that.

It’s clumsy, because he’s drunk and more ‘falling on Cayde’s face’ than kissing him. It’s also awkward, because Cayde doesn’t have lips and Razel isn’t exactly experienced in kissing people, let alone Exos.

But it’s amazing. Probably because it’s Cayde, and Razel has been wanting to do this for forever. Apparently. He didn’t notice, but now he _knows_. It feels so good, he should have done it months ago.

Cayde is struck speechless when he draws back. He looks at him quizzically. Did he break him? Is that a thing that can happen and no one saw fit to warn him?

Finally, he says, “I don’t think you know what a bet _is_.”

“Sure I do,” he replies with the absolute certainty of a drunk guy with only a distant knowledge of the subject matter. “I lost.”

The hand still holding on to the back of his shirt flattens against the small of his back, a slight pressure drawing him closer. Another falls on the back of his neck, fingers threading through his hair. Cayde leans in, or maybe he does, and they’re so close they would be sharing air, if Exos breathed.

“And what did I tell you about taking losing bets?”

He kisses him again before he gets the chance to reply.

 


End file.
